ASTORINO: REPEAL HARCKHAM CASHLESS BAIL LAW NOW; REINSTATE BROKEN WINDOW THEORY POLICING.
76 Shootings in New York City Last Week.
Hudson Valley-Aug. 17...
With 76 shootings in New York City alone last week — more than double the number from a year before — former two-term Westchester county executive and state senate candidate Rob Astorino today called for the immediate repeal of State Senator Peter Harckham’s (SD-40) controversial cashless bail law and for a return of “broken-window-theory” policing in New York City, the bedrock of New York’s rebound beginning in the early 199o’s.
“Three New York City police commissioners have cited Peter Harckham’s cashless bail law as a trigger for the crime wave we are experiencing, and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s decriminalization of street offenses like turnstile hopping and public urination has handcuffed police officers and exacerbated the sense of lawlessness on our streets,” Mr. Astorino said. “The Harckham-deBlasio-AOC wing of the Democratic Party has been playing with fire, and innocent New Yorkers are predictably getting burned. If New York City fails, New York State fails, and none of us can allow that to happen.”
Mr. Harckham rushed through the controversial cashless bail law in Albany last year with virtually no input from New York’s law enforcement community. The experimental new law tied the hands of judges, police officers, and district attorneys with disastrous results, Mr. Astorino and others have said.
The current New York City Police Commissioner and two former commissioners who served under both Republican and Democratic mayors have cited Mr. Harckham’s law as the impetus for the soaring crime rates we are now suffering, as have many other law enforcement officials.
“It’s bail reform. It’s covid. It’s emptying out prisons. One of the most frustrating pieces right now, is a criminal justice system that just is not working and I’m calling on Albany to fix it. Fix it now. People are dying on the streets of New York City,” NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea pleaded in June.
“They had no public discussions when this legislation was being put together, had no consultations with district attorneys, with police executives, with judges. They just did it because they could do it. And they shoved it down the public’s throat, and now we’re seeing the ramifications of it,” said former NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly in March.
“As we finally get rid of one virus there’s going to be a second virus created by the legislature, which is gonna be the crime virus,” former NYPD commissioner William Bratton correctly predicted in April.
“New York should be investing in its police departments, not defunding them,” Mr. Astorino said. "Public safety is the bedrock on which job growth and individual advancement are made possible, and New York desperately needs both those things. Chaos hurts everyone.”
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